It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
by LoveandLearn
Summary: A take a on the night Derek told Addison that he was in love with Meredith. Finally completed!
1. Chapter 1

He walked toward the nurses' station where his wife stood looking over a chart. He roughly grabbed her arm and turned her to gain her attention. She looked away from her chart and looked up into his eyes.

"Hey, honey." she said sweetly, still gazing into his eyes waiting to see why he'd approached her. He let go of the tight grip he hand on her arm. Her skin turned red and she instantly put her hand over it.

"I need you for a consult." he said carelessly.

"Okay, give me a minute. I need to..." he cut her off before she could finish what she was going to say.

"No, I need you right now." he state firmly, leaving no room for argument. She closed her patients file and set it on the file rack.

"You lead, I'll follow." she smiled. He rolled his eyes and lead the way.

"23 year old male, Robert Epstein has CF and a brain tumor against his frontal lobe. Lungs sounds full. Figured I'd call you. After the 2 years you waste with that CF fellowship, I figured now might be a good time to test what you actually did during those two years."

"I wouldn't call it a waste, Derek." she replied.

"Call it what you will." he answered and walked into the room. "Robert, this is Dr. Montgomery..." and after brief hesitation he added. "Shepherd."

"Montgomery-Shepherd?" the patients asked dividing his attention between them. "Any relation?" he asked.

"Between who?" Derek asked coldly.

"Between you two.." Robert stated obviously.

"We're married." Addison smiled and took the chart from Derek. She opened it and skimmed through.

"Unfortunately." he mumbled beneath his breath assuming that neither his patient nor his wife heard although they both had. Addison looked toward him for less than a split second. The comment hurting her more than she could ever explain. A type of pain she's never felt before. But she refused to let it show. She went on with the consultation she was asked to do. A few minutes later they both walked out of the room. She gave the file back to Derek and turned to him before they part ways.

"It's Christmas." she reminded him assuming he already knew what else that meant.

"What's your point?" he asked stupidly.

"I'm gonna go to Joe's after work. I have to do some..catalog browsing because I don't have time to go to actual stores. I was hoping that maybe you could meet me. We could get hot buttered rum like we do every year." she offered.

"I'm busy, Addison." he replied. "I don't know if I can make it."

"Will you at least try?" she as almost begging at his point. He loved that sound of desperation in her voice. It reminded him that she was madly in love with him and he could control her as he please in result.

"No promises." he said and walked away.

She sat at the bar with a drink in her hand and catalog placed on the table in front of her. She heard the door open but didn't look up to see who had entered.

"Hey." she heard Joe say but still didn't look away from the catalog.

"Hey, Joe. Merry Christmas." Derek replied, she looked up and although he hadn't seen her, she smiled.

"Merry Christmas." Joe replied. "Double Scotch, single malt."

"You're a good man." he added while Joe poured his drink. He took the glass bring it closer to his lips.

"Hey, Dr. Shepherd." he heard his wife say. Her voice sounding almost seductive.

"Dr. Shepherd." he lifted his glass and then took a sip. She gathered the catalogs and stacked them into a neat pile as he walked her way and took a seat in the chair angled beside her.

"How is Mr. Epstein's frontal lobe?" she asked. She's always asked about his day and his patients, she loved when he would tell her about the surgeries he'd done. He never really care to ask about her career and after a few months into their residency she simply stopped talking to him about it, realizing he couldn't care less.

"He woke up smiling." he answered with a smile

"Congratulations." she replied with a grin on her lips. She played with the stick of cinnamon in her drink before taking a sip. She had initially bought the drink for him, she wasn't really into drinking on this particular night. But when he got his own drink she felt hurt, they'd always had hot buttered rum together on Christmas. She took the sip, knowing it wouldn't do anything to hurt her. It was only one sip.

"Thank you. What are you drinking?" he asked curiously. She laughed and put down the cup, picking up a green napkin and dabbing her lips. Her wedding ring caught his eye, she was actually wearing, not that she ever took it off. But he hadn't bothered to put his back on and seeing hers seemed unnatural.

"It's hot butter rum, it's delicious." she answered, the smile still present.

"It's Dickensian." he told her.

"Oh, well it is Christmas." she reminded him again. "Christmas, Derek. We love Christmas." she said, her voice didn't make it clear of what she was feeling. "Or and least we used to." she looked away, and the tone of her voice died down. A voice that Derek once found attractive, sexy, melodic but now it disgusted him.

"Christmas makes you wanna be with people you love." he said, she looked up with hope in her eyes. She though he was going to tell her he loved her, for the first time since she's arrived in Seattle months earlier. She'd said it to him once or twice in the beginning but when he never reciprocated the feeling and so she she gave up and stop saying it. He looked away instantly, not wanting to see that longing in her eyes. "I'm not saying this to hurt you, or because I wanna leave you because I don't." he looked up briefly and saw that her eyes were drained of the desire and passion. A passion that once burned through her body and was visible to anyone who looked in her eyes. Now it was gone and the only thing he was a pathedic woman sitting in front of him. The only thing he saw in her eyes these past few months were desperation.

She remembered the night the poroposed to her, the look in his eyes. She always thought that when it was right she could look into his eyes and just know that it was meant to be. With Derek she never saw it, but she was so in love with him that it blindened her. In the begining of their relationship he looked at her with... something. She didn't know exactly what it was. Maybe it was just the "dreaminess" that she saw in his eyes and confused it for love. Now, in the recent years even that fake affection was gone. When she looked into his eyes she saw nothing but hate toward her and resentment toward their marriage.

"Meredith wasn't a fling." he continued "She wasn't revenge." he saw her lean away from the table and slouch in her seat. "I fell in love with her, and that doesn't go away because I decided to stay with you." he informed her, and leaned back onto his chair, turning away from her so he wouldn't have to look at her anymore. He poured the contents of his drink into his mouth while she numbly sat there staring at nothing in particular trying not to cry although it was taking more effort than she'd thought.

She dragged the stick of cinnamon in her cup from one side of the cup to another as she sat silently beside her husband, unsure of what she was suppose to tell him. Finally she leaned back toward the table, able to get a glimpse of the side of his face.

"I'm sorry." she whispered. He pretended he couldn't hear her but she knew he could. "You're right, you should be with someone you love. Go find her, take her out to dinner, tell her you love her. It's Christmas, you should be able to say those words to someone tonight."

"Addison.." he said tiredly assuming she was trying to make him feel guilty. "You're still my wife, I'm not going to leave you alone on Christmas. Especially to be with her because I know you're going to use it against me."

"I'm not going to use it against you." she promised. Truth was she'd rather be alone than be with him because every time she looked into his eyes she'd know he doesn't love her anymore and she'd know that she let him down. "It's not like we were going to do anything. I'm just gonna go ho.." she stopped unable to bring herself to say the word_ home._ The trailer had never been home for her. She just forced herself to like there for his sake. "I'm gonna spend the night doing paperwork, either way." she corrected herself.

"Okay." he got up and took his wallet out to pay for his drink.

"I'll pay on my way out." she brought his attention to the ATM card between her fingers. They were still married, all their money was in ONE joint account.

"I don't need you to pay for anything for me anymore." he answered bitterly dropping money on to the table. "I'll see you at home." he added and left.

Addison just sat there, still stirring the drink around.

"Are you okay, Dr. Shepherd?" Joe asked from the bar. She looked up at him, tears gathering in her eyes.

"I'm fine." she answered with her voice breaking. She looked at the watch on her wrist, it was midnight and suddenly it was clear. The last half of her life was over. It was wasted. She put the catalogs into her brief case. She stood at the bar and handed him her ATM card. After he had her sign the receipt she left.

Derek walked into the Trailer. "Addie?" he called expecting to see her still up doing charts as she had said she would be. It was three in the morning, she was usually still up at this time, only because his coldness in bed would prevent her from sleeping. She wasn't in bed, she was no where to be seen. And that's when Derek noticed that his trailer was no longer stuffed with hundreds of boxes of shoes. They'd been everywhere since she moved it, the trailer was too small to store them so she had them everywhere. Now every last box was gone. He moved closer to the table and saw an envelope. He turned on the light overhead and saw his name written across it. He ripped it open and took out a card and out fell her wedding rings. He set the rings on the corner of the table and opened the card. In her perfect hand writing it read:

__

I bought this card weeks ago expecting to write something different in it. After tonight I'm not sure I can write what I had in mind. I'm sorry for ruining your favorite holiday... and everything else. All the boxes wrapped in silver are yours, I'm not sure which one is which. I hope you like them, except that one thing which is going to be a horribly shocking disappointment. But don't worry, the subject will be terminated by the time you wake up tomorrow.

All my love,  
Addie

He dropped the card on the table. After everything he'd put her through, she still signed the card 'All My Love' after what he told her that night... she still wrote it. Derek went toward the boxes on the couch. He picked up all the silver ones and set them before himself. All of them were in the exact same sized box and wrapped perfectly identical to one another. He ripped the wrapping off the first one, it was two plane tickets reading their names. She got them tickets to spend New Years with his family. He threw them on the table beside the card and opened the next one. A private box for the upcoming super bowl. He tossed it aside and got the next box. In it was a note.

__

Go look in the cabinet above the bed.

He threw it down and went into the "bedroom." He opened the cabinet and saw about a hundred bottles of his brand of hair gel, with a note angled toward him.

_I know you hate going to the story to buy it, so I got enough to last you a year... or three._

He went back to the table and unwrapped the final box. He pulled the top off a small white box and saw a peice of paper inside. It wasn't just any piece of paper. It was a black and white grainy, hardly visible picture, a sonogram. In the white border, her now unmistakable hand writing said.

_Merry Christmas Daddy. I love you. _

Yet again a heart was drawn at the end of her message. And again there were those three words, almost as if she wrote them to haunt him. The picture fell from him fingers onto the floor of the trailer. He looked down but didn't bother to pick it up.

To Be Continue...  
Please Review

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Author's Note:

I wanted to wait to Christmas to post this but I couldn't help myself.  
It's meant to be a few chapters long, most it of it is written already. I really wanna know what you guys think of it.  
I watched the bar scene about a millions with subtitles to make sure I got the lines right. And I watched it in slow motion once of twice to get the actions to a perfect T. I did change around the Epstein case, I know Addison originally had nothing to do with it.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek walked through the familiar halls of Mount Sinai Medical Center observing all the changes that had occurred over time. He recognized very few members of the staff and considered himself lucky for being about to navigate through the halls without getting lost. A lot had changed over the years, more than he could have imagined. What surprised him the most was the most was the familiar figure he noticed when he passed the neonatal ICU.

At first he was sure that it was just a figment of his imagination. Back when he lived in New York and worked at Mount Sinai he'd see Addison in the NICU almost every day. He got used to it. And now he was sure that his mind was playing tricks on him. He was afraid of turning back to see some old fat male neonatologist standing where he could have sworn Addison was seconds earlier. But when he did turn back he realized it wasn't just a mirage.

Derek quickly put on a protective surgical gown over his clothes, as required by the hospital for anyone who enters the NICU. He quietly stood in the threshold of the sliding glass door and watched as Addison delicately examined her premature patient.

"Hey, stranger." He said softly just as she was about to pull on the stethoscope she had draped around her neck.

She jumped slightly when she heard the voice break the silence. She hadn't noticed anyone else in the room and she was sure that she was still sane enough to know the voice didn't belong to one of the many sleeping infants. Addison turned to see her estranged husband standing in the doorway behind her. "Derek." She breath out quietly.

He walked closer, watching as she carefully applied the stethoscope onto the baby's chest. "What's going on with this little guy?" he asked curiously, assuming it was a boy because of the blue identification card on the basinet which was blank aside from the length and weight of the newborn. "Did you forget to fill out the name card?"

Addison shook her head, doing her best to concentrate on the respiratory sounds coming from the infant's chest rather than the sound of Derek's voice. She removed the stethoscope from her ears and flung it back to hang evenly around her neck. "He has was born at 30 weeks with underdeveloped lungs and ventricular spetal. His parents decided they didn't want to raise a sick child so they gave up custody." She redirected her gaze from her patient to her estranged husband and asked, "What are you doing here?"

Derek shrugged. "I just wanted to know what my wife, the brilliant neonatologist, has been dealing with recently."

"Now I'm your wife? We haven't seen one another in five years, I haven't been your wife in any sense of the word for a very long time. I'm going to ask you one more time and if you don't answer me I will call security and have you escorted out of my NICU." She warned in a hushed but angry tone. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here for a consult." He finally admitted.

"No you're not. The Chief would warn me if he needed to call my estranged husband into town for a consult. He would offer me those days off to avoid unwanted drama in the hospital. Don't lie to me."

"I missed you." He offered her in explanation. "Would you want to maybe have dinner with me tonight? We could do some catching up, maybe make it like old times. And if you don't enjoy yourself, if you don't want to give me a chance then I won't bother you again while I'm here."

"Okay." She agreed hesitantly. Her brain was telling her to disagree and run, he'd hurt her too many times for her to agree to his desires again. But her heart was telling her to trust him and she ended up doing just that. "My shift ends at 6. Then I have to go home so how does 8ish sound to you? Let me know where you want to meet and I'll be there."

Except that things didn't go according to plan. Addison ended up losing the little boy who she had become a little too attached to. As always she blamed herself for not being able to save the premature infant. She was convinced that if the baby had a family who cared about him then she would undoubtedly have been sued for malpractice. It was needless to say that the soft-hearted neonatologist was not exactly in the mood to go out to dinner with her estranged husband.

So instead Addison got home and relieved the nanny of her duties to her 4 and a half year old daughter. She changed into a pair of oversized sweats and begged her daughter to be on her very best behavior. She offered a bribe of taking a day off and letting her stay home from pre-school so they could spend that day however the little girl chose to. It was something that Addison would never usually do but she was desperate for a quiet peaceful night.

Derek had called her before she went for surgery to negotiate cafes with her so she went through her recent calls and pressed the green button on her Blackberry. He answered after the first ring. "Hey, please tell me you're not already there. You said 8. It's 7:15."

"I can't make it." She whispered tiredly. "I'm sorry for the last minute notice."

There was a few seconds of silence while Derek tried to figure out if she was bailing out on him or if something happened. He realized the sadness in her voice and knew it was serious. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I uh..I'll be fine. I just need to drink half a bottle of wine and go to bed." She answered. "I know you were looking forward to it though so I'm sorry."

About an hour later Addison's plans for a quiet evening backfired. Natalie, her daughter, was determined on not bothering her mother so she climbed on top of the toilet in her bathroom and leaned over into the sink to brush her teeth. Only problem was that the bottom of her pink socks didn't provide much traction and she slipped as she was getting down and hit her head right on the edge of the bathtub. Addison was alerted to the accident when she heard a loud agonizing scream coming from upstairs. It took her twenty minutes to get her daughter to stop crying with the agreement that Addison wouldn't leave her alone for a split second for the rest of the night. She immediately placed an ice pack on Natalie 's forehead and collapsed back on the couch to watch a cartoon with the little girl beside her.

When the doorbell rang she gave an exaggerated sigh as she got up. "Don't move, Natalie. I'll be back in two seconds."

Natalie didn't agree and she made sure her mother knew it. Addison gave in and lifted the child into her arms, keeping her perched on her hip as she went to answer the door, the icepack still held firmly to the little girl's head. When she opened it she saw Derek standing there with a large brown bag in his hand.

At first Derek's eyes focused on the child Addison was holding, then he turned his attention to Addison. "I'm sorry. I know you said you had a bad day and you didn't want to do anything but I was worried about you. I found out you still live in the Brownstone and I thought I should drop off something to eat. It's from that Italian Café you used to love. You sounded like you needed comfort food." He told her, taking note of the obvious redness in her eyes that told him she had been crying.

"I uh.." Addison struggled to respond, obviously not expecting his presence at her doorstep...their doorstep.

"I should get going. Hope you feel better." He said awkward, glancing at the child once more before he backed away from the door.

Addison sighed, watching him retreat. She didn't say anything until he was about to step off the last step at the tip of their property. "Derek." She called after him. "Don't leave me alone, not tonight. Please?" she sounded desperate and broken but she didn't have to ask him twice.

He came up the front steps quickly and walked into the house, closing the door behind himself. He debated whether to take the bag from her or the child and thought the bag was a safer option.

"I'm actually not very hungry, Derek. You can start. Grab a plate and eat on the couch or where ever. Just give me a few minutes. I need to get her in bed." Addison told him almost robotically.

Addison returned ten minutes later and quietly sat down beside Derek on the had neatly set a place setting for both of them on the coffee table in the living room but was too hungry to wait for her return to start eating. "I know you said you weren't hungry but I figured you may be tempted with me pigging out in front of you."

"I'm a little too stressed out to eat right now. I always end up hugging a toilet when I stuff my face full of food to ease stress."

Derek nodded. "I remember." He said softly. Over the next few minutes they both sat quietly, the only noise came from Derek's fork clattering with the dish. "So…" he started. "You have a daughter."

"Yes." Addison confirmed. "Natalie, she's exactly four and a half as of two days ago."

"You left me five years ago. And you were about 2 and a half or three months pregnant at the time." Derek calculated. "Which would mean that you didn't terminate and that you had my child and never told me."

"Yes." She repeated, this time barely loud enough for him to hear her. "I'm not in a good mood, Derek. Just for tonight can we pretend everything is fine between us. You can scream at me first thing tomorrow morning but I can't take it right now."

Derek sighed but agreed. "I am not going to yell at you. You couldn't terminate our child, you kept her and you're raising her as best you can. I have no right to judge that because had I not been such an ass-hole we could be doing this together."

"You're taking it better than I thought you would. I thought you'd demand full custody in the divorce settlement." Addison admitted.

Before Derek could respond, a little girl cleared her throat from the bottom of the stair case. Both Addison and Derek turned around to see her innocently looking at them. "I heared monsters upstairs." She told her mother with fear in her voice.

With an exasperated sigh Addison said, "Honey, we go through this every day. There is no such thing as monsters."

"Do you wanna stay down here with us, Natalie?" Derek offered her softly, pointing over to the slightly smaller adjacent couch. "You can sleep down here and we'll carry you up later."

Natalie nodded gratefully and quickly moved toward the couch to climb up on it. "Have you ever seed a monster?" she asked Derek curiously. "I'm scared of 'em."

"Don't worry about, monsters, Nat. Derek took karate classes when he was a kid. He's a black belt now. He can beat up any monster that tries to hurt you, okay?" Addison told her softly, watching as her daughter curled up on the couch then covered herself with the coat Addison left on the couch when she came home. "And he's staying over tonight so you'll be safe, we promise."

"Really?" Natalie asked Derek with wide eyes.

"Really." Derek confirmed although in reality he was only a yellow belt, just one higher from the beginner's white, because he quit his karate classes eight months after starting it. He waited until Natalie fell asleep, before asking Addison, "Is that an excuse you use often to bring guys home?"

Addison rolled her eyes. "Does she seem like she's used to having strange men in her presence? No." Addison answered. "I haven't been dating, Derek. I have a child I need to consider and she's more important than my sexual and social desires."

"I was just kidding. I wasn't actually expecting an answer." He replied, creating an awkward silence between them. "Can I tell you something?" Derek asked her softly and waited for her to nod. "I don't want there to be a divorce. I want to try again."

"Derek, we've already tried twice." Addison reasoned. "We've already hurt one another enough for one lifetime. Don't you think it's time we accept that we were never meant to be?"

"How could you think that, Addie? We've been together for so many years and we have amazing memories together. Sure, we've had a lot of tough times, more than many other couples but we would always fight it together." He rationalized. "We've got a child together and while I don't know her too well, she seems amazing like I always imagined our child would be. I was want us to have what we always dreamed off and I don't want a few bumps along to way to be reason for us to quit."

"If we're be metaphorical Derek, it wasn't a few speed bumps along the straight road. It's been a very long, very twisty road and there have been speed bumps, and there have been lots and lots of pot holes and those pot holes can make or break you and they broke us, Derek. We crashed and burned."

"They don't have to break us. We decide what makes or breaks us."

"I don't want to think about it right now." Addison whispered tiredly, nuzzling her head into Derek's chest. "Right now I just need to pretend that everything is perfect. I just need someone to hold me and assure me that everything is alright."

Derek nodded and moved over on the couch closer to her, wrapping his arms around her. "Do you want to talk about what's going on with you today?"

Addison shook her head, "I wanna go to sleep and forget about this past week." There was silence for a few seconds before she changed her mind. "Actually, I want to forget the last six years of my life. I want everything to go back to the way it was six years ago…Expect Natalie. She's the only good thing that's happened to me in the last six years."

"We can go back to the way we were six years ago plus Natalie. I can move back here and we can be a family. I can open a private practice, practice mainly neurology. Neurosurgery will be reserved to like one day a week if that's what it takes to be there for my family." He promised sincerely.

"Derek…"

Derek interrupted her before she could say anything more than his name. "I just want you to know that this time I will make changes to better suit our lives. It won't be like it was in New York that last year, it sure as hell won't be like the six months in Seattle."

"I just…" her voice trailed off and she took a deep breath to pull herself together again. "I had a terrible day and an even worse week. I just don't want to make such a huge decision right now." She explained logically.

"You don't have to." He assured softly. "I'll be here to hold you tonight. You can sleep on it tonight and let me know tomorrow. My flight is tomorrow at 7 pm. If you want me gone I'll leave, if you want me to stay then I'll be here for you for the rest of our lives. It's your choice and I'll respect whatever you decide, all you have to do is think about it and let me know."

Addison nodded her head against his chest. "Okay." She whispered before falling asleep.

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Didn't expect to see an update after all this time, did you? I've been working on this for months! I kept changing it. And I leave you with a cliffhanger because I love those soooo much. You get to decide what Addison decided but who knows in another two years or so I may surprise you with another update :) I don't have any plans to add more to this story because I don't want to kill it like I did last time but if something good comes to mind to add on I will.

And you may remember the shitty ten chapter story this one-shot became. I obviously deleted all of that and wrote this to replace it. If you reviewed chapter two back then, then you can't review this now. Sorry. You can sign out and review if you want.


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